Choking It Back
by Jehan's Muse
Summary: AnaLucia takes Henry's silence very, very personally. She'll do anything to force him to talk to her. Warning for smut, AnaLuciaHenry Gale.


Henry is the first prisoner she's ever had trouble getting to talk. His refusal to eat and drink doesn't bother her much; the fucker can starve and wither for all she cares, but his silence is like spit in her face. She has to take it personally.

Every hour, on the hour, it's the same routine. She goes into the armory and leans against the locked door, staring at the side of his head, while he sits ramrod-straight on the edge of his cot and stares unblinkingly at the opposite wall. Sometimes he's asleep, and she'll shake him rudely awake in the hopes that maybe he'll make some disoriented sound, but even when groggily half-conscious and shaken-up, he won't make a fucking peep.

Locke doesn't say anything about the way she'll claim to be just checking on Henry and then stay in his cell for half an hour at a time, but she can always feel his eyes on her back, disapproving, through the armory door. She scorns it. The old fart just wants Henry to himself so he can beg for details about the button. But she's noticed that Henry's more inclined to talk to John than he is to anyone else. If John would just ask him something _worthwhile,_ they might get somewhere...

But no. If Henry's going to spill anything, Ana wants to be the one to get it out of him. She wants the victory for herself. She isn't about to let John Locke claim what's hers.

This is why she's been leaning against the armory door for forty-five minutes and counting now, memorizing every detail of Henry's profile, learning her enemy. She studies the traces of gray in his dark hair, the shell shape of his ear, the length of his eyelashes.

She moves closer, mapping the bloodstains on his shirt, and notices with a little thrill of satisfaction how his breath quickens nervously as she approaches. Sayid and Eko have made him wary.

"You scared of me, Henry?" she says softly. "I thought we were pals."

She holds back her disappointment when he doesn't even look at her.

"I could snap your chicken neck with one hand if I wanted to." 

Nothing. But then, she makes threats like this all the time, and Sayid makes worse ones, and Eko brought a machete with him last time he came in here. It's no small wonder Henry doesn't react to promises of violence anymore.

But violence is all she's got. One could say it's her specialty. Violence and blustering and decent aim with a sidearm when she knows what she's supposed to be shooting at. If she's got nothing else to offer, how is she supposed to get a rise out of the unflappable Henry Gale?

She folds her arms gloomily across her chest and stares at the floor, noting that her top has grown so worn-out that it doesn't flatten down her breasts anymore.

Well. There is, technically, one other thing she's got. She's just not all that practiced at using it.

She joins him on the cot. His hands are tied; she doesn't feel unsafe getting too close to him. His eyes flick towards her and linger for a few seconds. It's like a reward, his letting her know that he's confused.

"You can't keep up the silence forever," she says. "Jack'll kill you if you play your cards wrong, and last I checked, you didn't want to die." She smiles at the memory. "You were flat-out begging me to save your life, remember? Crying and dripping snot and everything. Good times."

He looks like he wants to roll his eyes, but even that would be satisfying to her, and so he doesn't. She really does have to admire him. Just a little.

She touches his shoulder experimentally, and he gives her the tiniest little flinch. He's warm, even a little feverish. Jack hasn't done too much in the way of taking care of Henry's wounds. Ana probes at them, delighting more and more in every little gasp from between gritted teeth.

She presses her fingers harder into the bruises she can see through the holes in his shirt. He swallows hard and clenches his jaw, and she thrills. She cups his cheek in one hand, rubbing her thumb over his black eye, and he jerks away with an irritable exhalation, but he can't get away from her. She lets him know exactly who's in control here, grabbing his face roughly with both hands and shaking him, turning his head towards her when he tries to look away, and _still_ the bastard won't say a word.

"I'm getting real fucking tired of the silent treatment, Henry," she breathes, jabbing hard at the still-bleeding wound in his shoulder. His cry of pain is short and strangled, but it's enough. Her heart pounds.

She pulls the bandage off and slowly, deliberately, drags her nails over the wound. She wants him to scream; she wants an "oh God" or a "please, no" or something. She'd be satisfied with a simple "ow." But he's better at this than they'd all thought, when he wants to be. He won't give her anything more than a trembling gasp, even when blood starts to trickle thickly down his side.

It isn't fucking _enough._ She grabs his face again and kisses him hard enough to bruise, biting his lower lip to make him open his mouth.

He can't push her away with his wrists bound. It takes her a moment to realize that he isn't trying to.

He's a smart man. He recognizes this for the battle it is, meeting her tongue defensively halfway when she thrusts it into his mouth. For every inch she presses into him, he presses back and then some. The blood that's soaked through his shirt smears her arm, and rubs off her arm onto his cheek when she tangles her fingers painfully in his hair.

"You can't stay silent forever, Henry," she whispers against his lips. "I'm gonna make you talk if it's the last goddamned thing I ever do."

He gives a derisive little laugh that makes her blood boil. Not that it's the first time she's ever been laughed at, or even that she wasn't expecting a similar response, but the fact that she's made him bleed and he still has the audacity to laugh at her...

Her hands aren't bound. She can backhand him across the face with force enough to split his lip and bloody his nose, and she does.

His head jerks back from the impact, and he scoffs, as if he's expected no better from her. Of course, he still won't talk, but she knows what he wants to say. _Typical, Ana. No wonder everyone hates you._

She pushes him down onto the mattress, kicking off her jeans and shoes, pinning him down with a hand on his wounded shoulder. Only then does it occur to her that she's playing directly into his hands with her violence. She's victimizing him, giving him a reason to scorn her, doing exactly what he expects her to do. As long as she's predictable, he has the upper hand.

When she bends to kiss him again, she's contritely gentle, licking the blood from his lower lip and rocking her hips slowly against his. It takes him aback, makes him startle, but his response, for the first time, seems genuine. He tilts his head, lips parting further, fully accepting her kiss, her tongue in his mouth, her legs straddling his groin, her hands in his hair. His arms, tied together, are still pinned above his head, but he relaxes into the mattress in such a way as to settle her closer against his body.

She smirks at him. "When was the last time you got laid, Henry?"

He considers her for what seems like hours. "It's been a while," he says finally.

Just like that. She stares at him with narrowed eyes. Somehow, it still feels like she's lost.

"God damn, but I hate your guts," she murmurs. His answering smile makes her want to punch him again.

She kisses him hard, making the cut on his lip bleed afresh; she drags her tongue over a bruise on his neck and whispers against the damp skin. "I'm gonna make you scream, Henry, no matter how hard you try not to..."

He laughs shortly and leans his head back against the thin pillow. _Try me, bitch,_ she knows he'd say if he could. She rakes her nails over the skin under his ragged shirt, scrapes a nipple with her teeth and dips her tongue into his navel. His breath quickens further, but he's done talking for the moment.

She slides her hands down his body, over the bruises she's poked at, and lets them rest on his hips. She's determined to get _something_ out of him that he didn't intentionally give. She's already arousing him against his will; she can almost hear him doing quadratic math in his head to distract himself from his erection. She tugs his zipper down with her teeth--something she's never done before--and takes his half-hard cock in her hand. She can hear that tiny little intake of breath, feel his heart pulsing fast through the vein she's now tracing the tip of her tongue along. His breath is ragged when she sucks the head of his cock, and he lets out a groan when she takes the whole thing into her mouth and back into her throat, working him deeply and quickly until he's completely, achingly hard, and then she lets go, only her lips still brushing against his tip. "You're gonna be begging me to let you come by the end of this, Henry," she breathes. She crawls up his body again, straddling his waist, and slips her panties off, tossing them to the floor.

He's sick of letting her be in charge, and drives into her hard before she's prepared, eliciting an angry grunt. "Goddamn you, Henry," she hisses, knees clamping his sides. That had hurt. Not terribly, but it's been a long time for her, too.

She pins him down by the shoulders again, rocking at her own pace, closing her eyes and letting her guard down, because _god_ that feels good now that she's grown accustomed to having something inside her again. He's so warm, so very hot and alive and amazingly human and it _kills_ her that she wants him so badly. She should still be beating him, still be wanting him to bleed and hurt, for Cindy's sake, for Zack and Emma and Nathan and Sayid's girlfriend.

She rides him harder, letting go as much as she feels she can, tilting her head back and feeling her hair trail down her back. "Jesus fuck, Henry...god...oh, fuck, yeah..."

Her eyes are closed. She doesn't register it when he sits up halfway, lightning-quickly looping his bound hands over her head and flipping her onto her side and pulling her tight against him.

"Fuck," she breathes, pressed suddenly against his chest, his forehead resting against hers and his breath warm on her cheek. He's still inside her, his heart still pounding, and he slides his hands down her back to hold her closer, to press still deeper into her, until all she can do is swallow and moan softly into his shirt.

"Fuck you, Henry," she whispers, wrapping her legs around his waist.

His thrusts are slow, deliberate, like his words when he deigns to talk to them, and she can't control the pace anymore. She grits her teeth and grabs fistfuls of his shirt. "Faster, _pendejo_--harder, god damn it, I need it harder, you bastard, you miserable shitface, fuck me _harder_--"

"So very impatient, Ana-Lucia," he murmurs against her neck. It makes her want to scream, but he obliges, quickening his pace, thrusting as deeply as he can, until she can barely feel his individual movements through the searing, vibrating haze of pleasure.

"Fucking hell, Henry, _yes_--_just like that--_"

She clenches her inner muscles and laughs out loud to hear him swear and feel his rhythm falter--it's a small victory, a battle won that won't yet win the war, but it's proof that she can do it. She sucks hard at his throat, darkening an existing bruise and licking over it to soothe it, flexing her muscles in and out and feeling the heat build steadily until she can't hold back a high-pitched cry--

"Oh _motherfucker_ Henry _yes yes oh fuck yes_--"

He's trembling, his thrusts fast and shallow and offbeat, but he crushes her against him and gives three jerking, forceful thrusts that send her climbing and falling over the edge, orgasm like a great rolling blackout that makes her yell exhaustedly and not give a damn at the moment who out in the hatch might hear, because god knows John won't tell anyone...

The throes of her orgasm are too much for Henry; the feel of her spasming drags his climax from him long and hard, forcing a breathless "Jesus _christ,_ Ana!" out of him as he comes and collapses next to her.

She takes her sweet time catching her breath and removing his arms from around her, and lies for a moment next to him to bask in the afterglow of sex and victory.

She sits up after a moment, pulls on her panties and jeans, and turns to face him again.

"Match, set, Cortez," she says cheerily, pats him on the shoulder, and heads for the door. "Better luck with the silent treatment next time, huh?"

She leaves him on the cot to figure out how to zip his pants back up with his hands still tied, and saunters out the door, ignoring the slightly flushed Locke sitting at the computer.


End file.
